Engage
by Laura Schiller
Summary: A collection of "Star Trek: Picard" drabbles. Spoilers up to the most recent episode. Mostly canon pairings, but with a little speculation thrown in.
1. Chapter 1

Engage

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Picard_

Copyright: CBS

/

"You're staring at me," said Elnor, arching an upswept eyebrow and lowering his sword. "Why?"

Agnes, who had been fascinated by the sight of him whirling, flipping and leaping around the holographic training arena at lightning speed, flushed bright pink and backed up several steps. "I wasn't – I mean – sorry, am I bothering you?"

"You didn't answer my question. Do I frighten you? Or … " A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Do you find me handsome?"

She looked him up and down. Black eyes. Golden skin. Elegantly pointed ears. A lithe, strong body that could kill with the grace of a dancer … "Both, I guess."

"You're very pretty too, Dr. Jurati," he said coolly. "For a human."

"Really?" Agnes squeaked.

"But that doesn't mean you get to interrupt my training." He lifted his sword and struck the opening pose of his exercise. "Please go away."

Agnes fled, feeling about a dozen things at once, first among them the feeling of being about fourteen years old.

Wow, she'd been right earlier. The Way of Absolute Candor really was annoying.

/

Raffi should have known that when she went to raid Rios' drinks cabinet, she'd find that her fellow Starfleet reject had already had the same idea. His feet were up on the table in the mess hall, his chair tipped back, and several bottles of Chateau Picard in front of him, one already empty.

He raised his glass to her, waving her toward the opposite chair. "Sit down, will you? Have some. For a tight-ass with a martyr complex, our friend makes one hell of a good wine."

"I know, right?" She grinned ruefully as she picked up another glass from the cupboard. "He bribed me with the '86 to come here."

She poured herself a generous glassful and plumped herself down.

"What's the deal with you and Picard anyway?" He wiggled his eyebrows. "Ex-lovers?"

"Pfft! Come on!" She punched him on the arm, making him yelp.

It took three glasses until Raffi was drunk enough to answer that question seriously.

"He was my hero," she said. "Then he let me down."

"I had a hero once," said Rios. "I let him die."

They caught each other's eyes, clinked glasses, and shared a sardonic smile.

With any luck, Raffi thought, they'd both be too wasted to remember this the next morning.

/

"So what's she like, your sister?" asked Narek, his tone a masterpiece of casual inquiry even as every atom of him tensed with impatience.

Soji, tangled up in standard-issue blankets, her face propped up on her hand, smiled warmly, but her blue eyes were worried. "Amazing. Really smart. She's a fellow at Daystrom, did I tell you? I just … I wish she'd answer my messages."

"You're worried about her?"

"It's silly, I know." Soji sighed, tracing the interlocked ring pattern of her necklace. "Mom promised me just yesterday that everything was okay. I mean, we're adults, right? She's probably just busy with her new job."

"You're not silly. It's natural to care."

Narek pulled her close, soothing her, even as his own mind raced with conflicting emotions.

Gods, she was realistic for an android. Everything about her spoke of love and concern. She seemed – he realized this with horror – more sincere than Narek's own sister was. When he thought of Narissa, with her cold hands and colder eyes, he felt his entire worldview dangerously close to unraveling.

_I should hate you, Soji Asha, _he thought for the millionth time. _No – not even that. One does not hate a weapon of mass destruction. One simply dismantles it._

But what frightened him even more was the fact that once she found out the truth about Dahj, she would be the one to hate him.


	2. Chapter 2

This One 

(Laris/Zhaban)

"Take this one with you!" Laris yelled at Picard, jabbing her finger in Zhaban's direction. "You can die together!"

She stormed out of the room. Zhaban, after sharing a commiserating glance with their employer, followed her.

Romulan secrecy has its reasons. Unlike their distant cousins the Vulcans, who can control themselves through telepathy, Romulans rely on locked doors and soundproof walls to keep their emotions private. Part of being married, however, is knowing when and how to breach those walls.

Their bedroom door was open. He entered without knocking.

Laris sat on the edge of the bed, her face buried in an embroidered handkerchief that had once belonged to Picard's mother. She crumpled it into a ball and glared up at her husband with bloodshot eyes.

"_This one?_" he said lightly, pointing at his own chest.

"Oh, you know I didn't mean it." She threw the handkerchief at him.

He caught it, shook it out and put it in his pocket for later laundering. "You don't want me to go with him?"

"I can't lose you too."

Laris stared out the window, through which they could see the rows of vines bathed in afternoon sunlight. Zhaban could see by the blank look in her eyes, however, that she was seeing different leaves, different soil, and the light of a different star … all of it now irretrievably lost.

"We _are_ losing him," Zhaban said quietly. "You know what that doctor said. This way … if he goes out fighting, at least he wouldn't lose himself."

"You've been a civilian far too long if you can say that," Laris retorted, but she leaned her head against his shoulder anyway and wrapped one arm securely around his waist.

"Maybe." He kissed the top of her curly head. "But this civilian's planning to stay with you for a long, long time."

"You'd better," she sniffed, fishing in his pocket to take back the handkerchief. "I'm not looking after this ramshackle place all by myself."

Zhaban had no trouble decoding this.

"I love you too," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Intervention

(Raffi, Picard & Elnor)

When Picard told his crew what had happened on Vashti, and exactly how a Romulan sword master had come to join them, Raffi was less than pleased.

"Goddamnit, JL!" she exploded. "A _duel_? At your age?"

"I would say I resent that," Picard replied mildly. "But as it happens, you're quite right. The Senator did challenge me, but I refused. I owe my life to Elnor's timely … if excessive … intervention."

He shot a look at the young man standing beside his chair that somehow conveyed both gratitude and warning.

"This isn't fucking _Three Musketeers_!" Raffi's bleached curls trembled as she shook her head in indignation. "Could you at least try not to get yourself killed?"

"Your anger is misplaced, madam," said Elnor, who seemed to be taking his _galankhai_ duties very seriously, defending Picard from verbal as well as physical attack. "It was not the Admiral who began that fight – and it was I who ended it."

By the grim look on his face and the way his hand went to his sword hilt, it was clear what sort of ending he meant.

"It's all right." The old man's face creased into a gentle smile. "The day you stop being angry with me, Raffi, is the day that you stop caring. I pray that day never comes."

/

Portrait

(Picard & Data)

"Why, Data, it's lovely," said Picard, unwrapping the painting his friend had given him with reverent hands.

"Thank you, Captain."

"Not your usual style, I think?"

"No, sir. I was inspired by early nineteenth-century Romantic painters, such as J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. Since my emotion chip was installed, my perspective on art has changed considerably."

Data's tone was as detached and intellectual as ever, but Picard turned to the painting with new eyes, and what he saw wrung his heart.

There was something familiar about that girl, so alone against the raging sea. The blue of her eyes, the round shape of her face, even her hairstyle … To the best of Picard's knowledge, Lal had never worn a white cloak or even visited a planet, let alone a stormy beach. But the waves had closed over her head all the same, and her father had been left behind on the shore.

"Does it have a title?" Picard asked.

"The title," Data replied, his yellow eyes focused on the girl's painted face, "Is _Daughter._"


	4. Chapter 4

Liability

(Jurati/Elnor, Jurati/Maddox, ensemble)

"You are not coming with us," Elnor said.

The crew of _La Sirena_ had just assembled on the bridge, preparing to transport down to Freecloud. Agnes, who was running slightly late (due to an acute case of meeting-my-ex self-consciousness about her hair and clothes), found her way suddenly blocked by a tall, frowning Romulan. She blinked up at him in dismay.

"Of course I am."

"The elf has a point," Rios chimed in. "A hideout for rogue synths is a dangerous place even by my standards. Sure you wouldn't rather stay here?"

Raffi snorted. Picard frowned. Seven of Nine raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if her patience with the inefficiency of individuals was wearing thin.

Elnor glared daggers at Rios for calling him an elf, but turned immediately back to Agnes, his eyes lingering on her freshly washed blond curls and the powder-blue jacket she was wearing.

"You are neither a fighter nor a diplomat," he said. "It will not be safe for you. Do you not agree, sir?" He glanced over his shoulder at Picard.

The old man shook his head. "Dr. Jurati is - " he began, but did not get to finish.

Agnes had had enough.

"_I,_" she snapped, getting right into the bodyguard's personal space even though she had to crane her neck to maintain eye contact, "Am the Federation's leading expert on synthetic life, okay? If any rogue synths try to attack us, I can hack them before you draw that sword. Also, I know Bruce Maddox. If anyone can smoke him out, I can."

All she meant, honestly, was to make a logical argument about her importance to the mission. Remembering exactly how she knew Bruce, though, and the last time she had seen him (devastated by the synth attack on Mars, pleading for her to come with him, pulling her close for one last kiss) made her cheeks flush and her eyes water at the same time.

"Wait, when you say you _know_ Maddox … " Raffi broke off when she saw Agnes blushing; her eyes bulged with almost comical disgust. "Ugh, Jesus, don't tell me you slept together. He's old enough to be your - "

"Raffi, please." Picard's voice was quiet, but firm, and for a wonder, Raffi actually subsided.

Agnes felt like one long scorch of embarrassment from head to foot. Elnor's reaction, however, was worse than Raffi's by several orders of magnitude.

His dark eyes widened; the frown line between his winged eyebrows smoothed itself out, his mouth softened. It was a look of pure compassion from her normally stoic shipmate, and it took her breath away.

"He left you?"

Even in the depths of her humiliation, Agnes could understand why the _galankhai_ would react this way. He, too, knew how it felt to be left behind.

"He asked me to come with him and I said no," she confessed, feeling a weight off her mind as she spoke, "But most of him was already gone by then."

She thought of all the messages she had sent to Bruce that went unanswered, all the times she'd reach for him in bed and find him already up in his office, all the times she'd lied to her friends when she'd gone to meet him because he'd wanted to keep her a secret. He had left her every day, little by little. She wondered if that was easier or harder than Elnor's experience of being left abruptly.

Elnor reached out his hand, so gracefully it didn't occur to her to be startled, and tipped her chin up so that their eyes met once more.

"Then you must hold your head high when you see him again," he said. "Let him know how far you've come without him."

Agnes felt all the heat coursing through her coalesce into a bright ball of warmth inside her heart. It was one thing for Elnor to pity her, but this wasn't pity. This was respect.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll try."

Seven of Nine flicked her hair back impatiently and raised a metallic eyebrow. "Now that Dr. Jurati's emotions have been dealt with, is everyone ready to leave?"

Nods and murmurs circulated around the room.

"Energize," said Picard and Rios at the same time.

The last thing Agnes thought of before dematerializing was not the man she was about to search for, but the one standing right beside her.

/

_Author's Note: Agnes' and Maddox's history together is detailed in Una McCormack's novel "Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope". My reaction when I read that was basically the same as Raffi's._


	5. Chapter 5

iTunes Shuffle Challenge

1\. "All The Little Lights" by Passenger

(Zani, Elnor & Picard)

Summer nights on Vashti were never completely dark, even when the stars were hidden behind a cloud. Elnor smiled in awe at the candleflies swarming above him, bathing the courtyard of the Qowat Milat Temple in flickering golden light.

"Imagine, child," said Zani, tucking one arm around his small shoulders and pointing up at the sky with the other, "That this is how our spirits might look, if they were visible. Every time we speak or act in a way that is true, we spark another light."

"And if we lie, a light goes out?"

"Exactly."

Elnor frowned at the darting insects, which suddenly seemed very small and fragile against the darkness. He wondered how many lights he had lost.

"I've rarely found the truth to be that simple," said Admiral Picard, who was sitting on the same bench on Elnor's other side. He sounded tired, or perhaps unhappy; it would take Elnor years to understand why.

"Maybe you should grow more lights then," he said simply.

"Excellent advice, my young friend." The older man smiled and ruffled the boy's hair. "Perhaps someday, I'll be able to take it."

/

1\. "Spieglein Spieglein" by Ina Mueller

(Raffi)

Some mornings, Raffi looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize her face.

The woman in the mirror is haggard, hungover, her eyes swollen from lack of sleep, her teeth turning yellow from smoking. She's bleached her hair so often and with such dubious materials that it's turning dry as straw. But she could live with all that, if only it wasn't for the expression on her face.

The woman in the mirror is dead around the eyes.

She flicks off the light in the tiny bathroom at the back of her trailer, on again, off again. Her reflection is still there.

When Picard shows up, she has many reasons for trying to send him away, but one reason she would never tell him.

She doesn't want him to see her like this.

/

3\. "Alone" by Heart

(Jurati/Maddox)

The night before meeting with Dr. Maddox, Agnes stares at the ceiling with her arms wrapped around her pillow.

It's not a date. She's told herself that a million times. He's her professor, for God's sake. Professors do meet for coffee and cake with their students sometimes, especially graduate students, most especially when said students' work aligns so perfectly with theirs that a one-hour seminar just isn't enough time.

But there was something more than that in the way he smiled at her.

The most brilliant, original, charismatic man she's ever known, whose research she's been following for all her adult life, and he wants to work with _her._

She falls asleep dreaming of a Daystrom Prize trophy with two names on it, and a sentient android who calls them Mother and Father.

Little does she know that dreams are all they will ever be.


	6. Chapter 6

Knockout

(Seven of Nine, Rios, Sirena EMH)

In the corridor outside Sickbay, Cristobal Rios paused to smooth back his messy salt-and-pepper hair and shake the wrinkles out of his shirt. He felt oddly excited to meet his new passenger, considering that she'd just sacrificed her own ship on his account. Perhaps it was because she really was a magnificent pilot; lucky she had chosen to defend instead of attack him. Perhaps he merely had a weakness for icy blondes.

He pressed the door button, walked in …

And found himself hovering awkwardly, feeling like an intruder on his own ship.

Seven of Nine had raised the back of the biobed to turn it into a chair and settled there with perfect ease; she'd even kicked her shoes off so she could sit cross-legged. The cut above her eye was gone and she had no other visible injuries, so the EMH should have deactivated himself by now. Instead, to Cris' profound dismay, the hologram was chatting with his new patient as if they were old friends.

" – So much respect for his work," the EMH was saying, waving his hands excitedly. "I downloaded all his papers on the medical applications of Borg technology. As for his _Photons, Be Free_ series, you can't imagine what it meant to me - "

"Even the first volume?" The Borg woman asked, smiling wryly.

"Well … " The EMH wrinkled his nose.

"I agree," said Seven. "The less said about the first volume, the better."

The EMH laughed warmly, a sound that never failed to grate on Cris' nerves. (He found so little to laugh about, these days.) He strode towards them with a decided thump of boots on floor. "Report, Doc," he ordered.

"Ah, Captain!" The hologram spun around and hurried towards him. "I'm pleased to report that our guest is fully recovered. Did you know she used to serve with one of my most illustrious colleagues, the _Voyager _EMH himself?"

_Dear Lord. _Cris raised his eyes to the ceiling. _He's star-struck. Just when I thought my holograms couldn't get any more obnoxious … _(He absolutely refused to think of a certain young Ensign Rios, who had been dizzy with awe on his first day aboard the _Ibn Najjid._)

"Deactivate EMH," Cris barked.

The hologram raised a hand and opened his mouth to protest, but vanished in a swirl of golden light before he could say a word.

"You'll have to excuse him, Miss, ah … what should I call you?" Cris added, inclining his head to his passenger in what he hoped was a charming, apologetic way.

"Seven."

"This is an old ship, and I keep forgetting to wipe the memory buffers. These holograms can get a little … " He teetered his hand back and forth to signify instability. This was not quite true; they were unstable only in the sense that they were individuals now, but they had never failed him in their duties. This was why, despite everything, he kept them running.

"Did you program them yourself?" asked Seven, getting up from the biobed and back into the worn but sturdy running shoes on the floor. Standing, she was just his height, and her blue eyes were inscrutable as she looked him up and down. "You bear a striking resemblance."

"Yeah, no." Cris scratched the back of his head, blushing. "They came standard with the ship. I just changed the physical parameters because … "

(Truth be told, sometimes he needed just needed an outlet for his anger, and better his own face than someone else's. A Starfleet counselor would have a field day with that. Thank God he wasn't in Starfleet anymore.)

"Because I felt like it," he improvised with a shrug.

"Ah."

"Welcome aboard_, _by the way, Seven." He smiled and held out his hands. "And thank you for saving us. My crew and I are in your debt."

"That's all right, Captain." Seven returned the smile as she reached for his shoulder.

His first impulse was to feel absurdly gratified. She didn't seem the type to take physical contact lightly, and if she wanted to cement their new alliance by patting him on the shoulder, that had to be a good sign, didn't it?

He cursed himself for an idiot as he felt her steel-tipped fingers pinch a highly sensitive nerve just before losing consciousness.

When he came to a few minutes later, he was the one lying on the biobed. His head ached a little and his mouth was dry, but otherwise he felt fine. To his infinite embarrassment, he realized she must have caught him before he hit the ground and maneuvered him up here, where he would be more comfortable than on the cold floor. Not exactly, he realized just in time before calling Red Alert, what an enemy would do.

If she had wanted to hijack the ship, she would have done it by now. She wouldn't still be standing there with her hands behind her back, looking down at him as if he were a mildly interesting bacterium in a microscope.

Still, he swung himself off the bed and kept it as a barrier between them as fast as he could. "Now what was that for?" he asked sarcastically. "And here I thought we were getting along."

"Now you know what it feels like." She glanced pointedly at the space where the EMH had been standing earlier. "To be deactivated the way you do to your shipmates."

"You knocked me out on account of my _holograms_?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she gave him a look of contempt that pinched him every bit as hard as her fingers had done. "I have friends who are holograms."

Too late, Cris remembered the stories that had been on all the newsfeeds after the attack on Mars. _Voyager_'s EMH – such a short, bald, frog-faced man next to the beautiful Seven of Nine; the picture they made was hard to forget – fighting for something as basic as the right to exist … Cris tried to imagine Starfleet confiscating his _Sirena_ and deleting his crew and saw red, although he didn't even like them.

After all, if Seven didn't have such a fierce protective streak, _La Sirena_ would be space debris by now.

"Well, I guess you made your point," he croaked, rubbing the space between shoulder and neck where she had squeezed. "Holy fuck … how do you even _know _the Vulcan nerve pinch?"

"I was Borg," Seven retorted.

"Right." He sidled past her on his way out the door. "Um … could you follow me, please? Picard would like a word with you."

She didn't bat an eye at the famous name, falling into step beside him without another word.

Damn, he thought, watching her blond hair ripple over her shoulders with every sharp, efficient stride. He'd met a lot of scary women in his time, but this one was something else.

He hoped she'd stay.


	7. Chapter 7

Liar

(Elnor & Jurati)

Raised by the Qowat Milat, Elnor can almost always see when someone is lying.

"I'm okay," Dr. Jurati says when he asks her how she is.

She is not okay. Her eyes are red, the rest of her skin as pale as uncooked dough. She flinches at small noises, stares into thin air during Admiral Picard's strategy sessions, and tenses all over every time someone even mentions the recently deceased Dr. Maddox.

Before they found the roboticist, Elnor hadn't formed the best impression of his character. Picard remembered Maddox vividly as the man who had tried to dissect Data. He had also caused pain of a different sort to Dr. Jurati, his lover, first by keeping their relationship a secret and then by leaving her behind.

_She is better off without you, _Elnor would have said to Maddox.

All that means less than nothing, however, in the wake of his death. A life lived selfishly can still be changed for the better. A life cut short never can.

"It may seem pointless at a time like this," Elnor says, catching Dr. Jurati's sleeve as they file out of the holodeck. "But I'm here if you ever need to talk … or to be silent."

"Thank you," she says, with a trembling smile and flickering eyes. "I'll take you up on that sometime."

Elnor can already tell that she won't.

While he's good at spotting a lie, however, he's not so good at discerning the reason why.

/

Forgiveness

(Raffi, Elnor)

"Go away," said Raffi, in response to the chime of her cabin door bell.

"Hiding in your cabin won't accomplish anything," said Elnor.

Raffi's head shot up from her pillow like a turtle from its shell.

Various shipmates had already tried to coax her out: Jurati, timidly offering tea and cookies; Rios, offering booze and backtracking hurriedly when he remembered she was trying to quit; even Rios' EMH, materializing right inside the cabin, to which she'd responded by throwing a shoe through his photonic head. Only Picard had wisely left her alone … until now.

She staggered to the door and glared at Elnor. "Tell your boss that sending his bodyguard to fetch me is a whole new level of arrogance."

"He didn't send me," said Elnor. "I came. Did you find your son?"

"Yes … and he hates me."

"Why?"

No _Of course he doesn't. _No _I'm sure you'll work it out._ Damn, Absolute Candor burned sometimes, but in a refreshing way. Like a straight shot of that bourbon she'd refused.

"Because I wasn't there for him growing up." She raked her hands through her curly hair, which was a mess from lying on that pillow. "And I can't blame him … but can't he see I'm trying to fix that now? Can't he tell I'm trying to be _better_?"

"Forgiveness can't be earned, Ms. Musiker, only given. The only emotions you can control here are your own."

"What the hell's that supposed - "

She remembered just in time what Elnor's history with Picard had been. She bit her tongue and bowed her head. If anyone understood, it was this young man, who was hardly older than Gabe.

"I'll have to think about that," she muttered.

"I hope you do."

"C'mon, kid." She patted his leather-clad shoulder. "Let's go see if Rios left any replicator rations for the rest of us."


	8. Chapter 8

Perspectives

(Raffi, Gabe, Pel)

As Gabe escorts Pel out of the Freecloud Fertility Clinic, letting her lean on his arm to support her weight, she can sense through touch-telepathy that he is still deeply troubled.

"You're angry with your mother," she says. "Why?"

Gabe scowls as if the answer were obvious. "She's an addict - "

(_"I'm clean," _Raffaella echoes in his memory, smiling with painful hope, and he has no way of knowing if that's true.)

" – A crackpot conspiracy theorist - "

(_"It's not crackpot!" _And Pel feels Gabe's disappointment like a punch to the gut.)

" – And she chose _strangers_ over Dad and me!"

His voice cracks with impending tears, and for a moment, she can see the echo of the eleven-year-old boy he once was.

She feels his pain, but she cannot agree with his reasons … and as he senses that (for, even with a human, the bond goes both ways) he turns to her with a frown.

"Strangers," she repeats, pointedly raising one Vulcan eyebrow. "Aliens like me, you mean?"

"That's not what I - " He blushes and stumbles over his words. "You know I didn't - "

But he did mean it. Where he turned on the news channels and saw the Romulan refugees as alien, Pel saw faces that could have belonged to her own family. It was all too easy to put herself in the place of those desperate mothers, and her own unborn child in the place of those orphans.

"The way I see it," she said, squeezing her husband's hand, "Your mother's choices are not mutually exclusive. She could never have cared for those Romulan families if she didn't care for her own."

"You don't know my mother," Gabe says, with an embittered sigh.

But as they step outside into the neon-lit streets and he hands her up into the back seat of their hovercar, touching her as gently as if she were a globe of blown glass, something about her words, or perhaps just the heavily pregnant state of her, seems to reach him.

"You know I love your relentless sense of logic," he says softly, kissing her on the forehead as he straps her seatbelt on. "Even when it's driving me crazy."

"Does that mean you'll contact her?"

"Maybe. Someday. I don't know."


	9. Chapter 9

iTunes Shuffle Challenge, Part 2

1\. "Das Nichtgesagte" (The Unspoken) by Annett Louisan

(Soji/Narek)

Soji never understood the Romulan saying that the loudest words are those that go unspoken – until today.

She remembers every conversation she and Narek ever had, at work and in bed, in words and in caresses, every question, every hint, every innuendo. She remembers being fascinated by the secrets behind his eyes, and she honestly thought he felt the same way. But in the end, his fascination and hers couldn't have been more different.

She wanted to discover him. He wanted to destroy her.

She should have guessed that something was wrong the night she asked him about true names and he walked away. She wouldn't be surprised to learn that "Chayan" was just another lie … but isn't there a chance, however remote, that it wasn't?

If she'd screamed that name, would he have turned around?

/

2\. "Il mio sbaglio piu grande" (My Biggest Mistake) by Laura Pausini

(Rios/Jurati)

Cris has made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he can tell this one will be memorable. He and Agnes have that in common. That doesn't stop him from leading her to his cabin hand in hand.

_Madre de Dios,_ but she's beautiful when she's broken. Like a porcelain teacup, so thin you can see the light shining through it, with hairline cracks that appear only in hot water. He'll have to be careful not to cut himself on the shards.

Can she see his own cracks running along similar lines? Is that why she's chosen him? Or is his body the only thing she sees?

Either way, he's going to sleep warm tonight. And when she disappears – which she will; they're under no illusions – it will be worth it.

After all, in a lifetime of regrets, what difference does it make to add one more?

/

"Bochum" by Herbert Groenemeyer

(Hugh & Seven of Nine)

"Are you sure you won't reconsider?" Hugh asks, escorting his fellow XB to the docking bay of the Artifact. "You'd be more than welcome here."

"I'm sure." Seven locks her hands behind her back to hide their trembling. "I respect your work, Director, but I couldn't live on a Borg cube. Never again."

It's the green light that gets to her, the smell of metal, and the constant background thrum of the machines. If she's not careful, she can hear them whispering: _Resistance is futile … _

"I understand." Hugh sighs, but smiles and holds out his hand. "Well, Seven, it's been a pleasure meeting you. I can assure you that we'll do everything in our power to help those people you saved."

"Thank you." She shakes his hand. Nothing will ever make up for Icheb's death, but at least the other former drones she saved from Bjayzl's slaughterhouse will somehow survive.

"If you need a pilot, call me." She hands the Director her card, and he tucks it into his pocket with a courteous nod.

Seven takes off in her shuttle at maximum warp, breathing easier the moment that cube is out of sensor range, and already regretting that card. When Hugh calls, though, she already knows that she'll be there.

What wouldn't she do for her Collective, after all?


	10. Chapter 10

Destroyer

(Soji, Picard, Jurati)

Agnes is in no way prepared to meet Soji Asha.

Of course she knew from the beginning that their charge would be the most human-like android ever created. Bruce (she still can't think of him without breaking into a cold sweat) would never have settled for anything less.

But this … this is a woman her own age with bruised knuckles and haunted eyes, dressed in a gray coverall like a prisoner or hospital patient, who clings to Picard's arm as if he's her only refuge.

"You're safe now, my dear," he says, disengaging her hands in the gentlest way possible. "Dr. Jurati will look after you."

His misplaced faith strikes Agnes like a heart attack.

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor," Soji murmurs, with a painfully polite smile. She holds out her hand to shake. Dried blood (as red as any human's) still spots her fingers.

_Destroyer,_ whispersCommodore Oh in Agnes' mind, but if anything, she looks like the one who's been destroyed.

"I'm afraid our EMH is offline right now," Agnes says. "But I can fix those cuts for you if you like."

And scan her while she's at it, down to the molecular level. This is what she's worked for all her life.

But as she holds Soji's bloody hand in her clean one, wielding the dermal regenerator with the other, the Commodore's voice echoes in her memory once again: _Destroyer._

It could apply to either of them.

/

Protector

(Elnor/Soji)

"Please, my friends," Elnor tells the Tal Shiar agents closing in on him, "Choose to live."

They don't.

It's the hardest battle he's ever had to fight. Not just because they outnumber him and are exceedingly well trained, but because with every stroke of the blade, he's tempted to go against everything Zhani taught him.

He doesn't want to kill them quickly. He wants to draw this out, make them suffer, leave them howling on the floor. But most of all, he wants to squeeze the name of their leader out of them, because that's who deserves to be punished.

Elnor could see upward through the hole Soji Asha tore when she punched through the ceiling. He could see the _Zhal Makh_ lanterns lying scattered – desecrated – in a cloud of poison gas. He could see the wildness in her eyes.

How strong she was, how resourceful, in the face of unspeakable betrayal.

What kind of coward – what kind of _liar – _invites a woman to so intimate a ritual in order to kill her?

Even if Elnor hadn't already decided to bind his sword to Picard's cause, he would do it now. If Picard's cause is to protect this woman, so is his.


	11. Chapter 11

Trust

(Soji, Elnor, Picard)

"You have a Romulan on board?"

Soji bites her tongue as soon as she's said it. She knows she's being unfair – this is the same man who stayed behind on the Artifact to cover her escape – but she didn't get a close look at him in the chaos, and the sight of those piercing dark eyes under sharply angled brows reminds her horribly of Narek.

In Picard's holographic study, with its wooden ceiling beams, oil paintings and paper books, with Picard's elderly human figure beside him, this Romulan looks more alien to her than Narek ever did.

"Soji, this is Elnor," says Picard, the civility of his manner an unspoken reproach of her rudeness. "My personal guard. You weren't properly introduced on the Artifact, were you? Elnor, meet Dr. Soji Asha."

Elnor bows, his long sweep of black hair falling forward. Soji returns the gesture with an uncertain nod.

"It is an honor," he says in perfect English, "To meet the daughter of Commander Data at last."

Soji, who until yesterday believed herself the daughter of a botanist, can't even begin to respond to that. (She thinks of the nightmare she has of herself as a doll in pieces on a workbench, her father a faceless stranger shouting at her for intruding, and if she says even one word right now, she might start crying.)

"I assure you," Picard adds, "You can trust him. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Qowat Milat … "

But there, her expertise (programmed expertise) on all things Romulan comes to her aid. (It's a distraction she really needs right now.) She takes another look at his sword, the markings on his clothes, even the way he wears his hair. At any other time, she would have been fascinated to meet him.

"You're Qowat Milat?"

"No." Elnor frowns. "As a man, I'm not permitted to join the Order. But I was raised by them, and choose to follow their way of life."

"The Way of Absolute Candor?"

"Yes."

Soji thinks of Narek, urging her to trust him, telling her what he claimed was his true name. A heat wave of something like adrenaline crackles through her body.

"_Then please tell me candidly,_" she says, switching to Romulan, _"Do you think I'm real?"_

"_What do you mean?" _Elnor tilts his head in bemusement. _"You're right in front of me."_

If his English accent has an old-world elegance he must have learned from Picard, his Romulan accent is pure outer-colony, rough and ready. It sounds lightyears away from Narek's highly educated layers of subtext. She addressed Elnor by the formal pronoun to keep him at a distance, but he's using it right back at her with nothing but respect.

"_Obviously!"_ she retorts. _"I mean, do you consider me a person or something to be used?"_

She crosses her arms and waits for his answer, testing him. If he's anything like Narek, he'll reassure her. He'll tell her exactly what she needs to hear to make her trust him.

Picard glances from one of them to the other, probably understanding more than he lets on, whether he speaks the language or not. He looks concerned.

Elnor's eyes narrow. Her suspicion must be getting through to him after all.

"_If you're not a person, Dr. Asha, I just killed six men for nothing," _he says stiffly, before turning on his heel and walking out of the room.

Soji steadies herself against Picard's desk, finding the breath knocked out of her by the force of that sentence. It was cold, it was harsh, it was completely inconsiderate … it was …

It was the exact opposite of what Narek would have said.

"You'll have to excuse Elnor." Picard rises from his chair with a creak and a sigh, then rounds the desk to place a hand on her shoulder. "He didn't mean to upset you. He just … he takes our mission very seriously."

"Yeah, I noticed." She lets out a half-strangled laugh. "And your mission is … what, me?"

"To keep you safe, yes." The old gentleman looks at her the way she imagines a father might (a real father, as opposed to whoever programmed her with a fake childhood). "And to discover the purpose for which you were created."

"And do I get a choice in any of this?"

"Of course you do." He sounded deeply grieved that she would assume otherwise. "My dear young lady, I would never keep you here against your will. But if you're searching for answers … "

He doesn't even need to finish that sentence. He's got her there and she knows it. As terrifying a prospect as it is to strip away all the illusions she believed in until, the only thing worse would be never learning the truth.

The truth. She glances at the door Elnor just walked through, hearing his blunt voice in her memory: _If you're not a person, Dr. Asha …_

Belatedly, she realizes what he meant. He does believe in her, however ruthlessly he expressed it. And after what she's been through, there are worse things than having her sentience affirmed by a Qowat Milat.

"All right, Admiral," she says, straightening her spine. "I'll stay … as long as you tell me everything you know."


	12. Chapter 12

Charity

(Hugh & OC)

"And is that all you have to show me this week?" asked General Vranik, dropping the padd Hugh had handed him on the desk with a dismissive _clack_.

Hugh picked it up and swallowed a burst of anger. The statistics on that padd – surgeries performed, patients responding to treatment, patients discharged – were all, if not as high as he wished, certainly nothing to be sneered at. The Artifact was, however imperfectly, making a difference. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know perfectly well." The insignia of Vranik's uniform gleamed in the green light as he fidgeted in his seat. "If you wish for the New Romulan military to continue funding this little project, you shall have to bring us some results that we can use. Weapons, transport, energy … anything that will help what remains of my people to defend themselves."

The old man bowed his clean-shaven head, and for a moment, Hugh could almost sympathize with him. He knew all too well what it meant to lose one's Collective and become suddenly helpless.

He was just about to scroll down to the end of his report, where he had copied Dr. Asha's insights on the treatment of trauma survivors (not what Vranik had asked for, but perhaps something he could use) when the sneer returned to the General's face. "It's not a charity we're running here, Director."

"With all due respect, General," Hugh rose to his feet, "_I_ run it – and to me, it is."

Vranik flushed an indignant shade of olive and started to say something, but Hugh cut him off: "Be assured that I will keep you apprised of _all_ our progress in the future, whether you find it useful or not. May I show you to the docking bay?"

Hugh took him politely but firmly by the arm and steered him out the door.

/

Acceptance

(Hugh, Soji, Data)

Young Dr. Asha reminds Hugh of someone.

He watches her at work, her glossy black head bent over her unconscious patient, extracting the Borg implants with utmost delicacy and precision, and he tries to think of who it might be.

Then she sees something that surprises her. Her eyebrows shoot upward, her eyes flicker from side to side, and he remembers.

_When the golden-skinned science officer approached the _U.S.S. Enterprise_'s Brig, Third of Five – recently named Hugh – braced himself for another confusing interaction. His last visitor, the El-Aurian, had blamed him for the assimilation of her race. Would this one be angry too?_

"_You are comprised of both organic and artificial materials," said the officer. "Intriguing."_

"_You … do not fear us?" _

"_As an android, I have no emotions. I do not experience fear."_

"_Do you experience loneliness?" asked Hugh._

_Hugh was lonely. The silence where the Collective used to be was preying on his mind. It was not a condition he would wish on anybody. He wished Geordi were here._

_Data's eyebrows shot upward. His eyes flickered from side to side. He paused before answering the question._

"_Sometimes," he said at length, "I could wish for another like me. But the friendship of those who are different has its own challenges, and I find it most rewarding."_

"Director, look," says Dr. Asha, waving Hugh forward. "I've never seen a nervous system like this. Should I increase the medication, do you think? I don't want him to be in too much pain when he wakes up."

He admires her for thinking like this, blending science and kindness gracefully into one. He's learned a lot over the past thirty years … including how to smile.

"It's your call, Doctor. Keep up the good work."


	13. Chapter 13

Myths

(Soji, Elnor, Picard)

Elnor had gone to the holodeck for fencing practice, but he found it already active. Their newest shipmate was inside and she had turned it into a greenhouse, blooming riotously with flowers of every color. Sunlight shone through the glass walls, making the beads of condensation glitter. The smell should have been dizzying. All he could smell was recycled air and metal, however, reminding him that this was only an illusion.

Dr. Asha knelt on the ground, her gray coverall streaked with earth. At the sound of his soft leather boots, she looked up. Her face was smeared with dirt and tears. Suspicion flashed across her face at the sight of him, but then she shrugged.

"Forgive me, Dr. Asha. Am I inbutting?"

"I really couldn't care," she said. "The whole ship knows about my issues anyway, so what's the difference?"

"Your … issues … involve flowers?"

"_Orchis dahj _and _Orchis soji_. Dad bred them and named them after us. Look."

She held up a handful of crushed petals, some peach-colored, some scarlet. At a second glance, Elnor saw that she was sitting in the middle of a ruined flowerbed; some were crushed, others torn out by the roots.

"Computer, end program," said Elnor, disturbed by this wanton destruction in ways he couldn't define.

The greenhouse vanished. The floor beneath Dr. Asha turned back into a bare hologrid. Elnor held out a hand to help her up, but she ignored him, scrambling to her feet with a sad, bitter laugh. "See? It's fake. The flowers are in the database, but the breeder's name is Maddox, not Asha. None of it was real – not my dad, not my memories … not even my sister anymore."

The dirt on her had disappeared, but the tears were still there. She wiped her face roughly with the sleeve of her coverall.

"I grieve with you."

"I'm not _grieving,_" she snapped. "How can I? I didn't even know her. Everything I thought I knew is a lie."

Elnor's mind raced, trying to think of anything he could possibly say that would be both true and reassuring. None of the scriptural quotations he could think of were helpful in the least. He wished Picard were here.

Thinking of his mentor recalled a fragment of memory, one he hadn't thought about in years.

"_Are the Musketeers real, sir?"_

"_No, my boy. The setting was real and so were some of the characters, but the story itself is fiction."_

"_What?" Eight-year-old Elnor slammed the paper book shut. "Then why bother reading about them if it's not even true?"_

_Picard smiled and stroked the cover, golden letters gleaming beneath his wrinkled hands. "Because the myths people create can teach us something facts alone cannot."_

"_But what's the difference, then? Between a myth and a lie?"_

"_A lie obscures," said the old man. "A myth illuminates."_

"Maybe … your past doesn't have to be a lie," Elnor said hesitantly, "Maybe it's more of a myth."

"A myth?" Dr. Asha frowned, but more in thought than in anger, like a scholar presented with a new idea. "What do you mean?"

"Whoever created those memories … " He gestured awkwardly at the empty holodeck where the greenhouse had been. "Put a lot of thought into making them joyful."

"They did." She sniffed. "That's why I hate to think that they weren't real."

"Did you ever consider, Dr. Asha, that _you_ might be the orchid?" He blushed at the absurdity of the image and hurried to specify: "It's unique, it takes an expert to grow, it doesn't occur in nature any more than you do, and … " He took a deep breath to gather his courage. "And it's beautiful."

Her blue eyes widened. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw her blush before she turned her back on him.

He was just beginning to fear that he had said something inappropriate – again – when her shoulders slumped in a quiet sigh and she turned back around.

"Computer, resume program," she said. "Starting at the last save point."

With a quiet beep, the greenhouse blossomed around them once again. The bed of _Orchis dahj _and _Orchis soji_ was whole this time, not a petal out of place, and when their namesake crouched down to look at them, she was almost smiling.

"Can you guess which one is mine, Mr. Elnor?"

He knelt beside her for a closer look. His first guess would have been scarlet, but he was Romulan enough that his instinct was to reject the easy answer. He took a second look, right into the hearts of the flowers. The scarlet ones were white inside, but the light orange ones … _ah. _The deeper you looked into them, the more they flushed, in shades of pink and red as subtle as Dr. Asha's face.

"That one."

"You're right." Her almost-smile grew into a real one. "Thank you."

"For guessing?"

"For helping me to feel a little less … uprooted."

She stroked one of the holographic plants with one gentle fingertip. He did the same, deliberately, until their fingers met in the middle.

"I will do whatever I can," he said, "To help you find somewhere to bloom."


	14. Chapter 14

Salvage

(Seven of Nine, Elnor, Hugh)

Seven knew that for Hugh to summon her using one of her calling cards, it had to be something serious. She had no idea, though, how serious it was.

She docked at the Artifact without anyone hailing her, trying to stop her, or even scanning her ship. As she disembarked and followed the signal down the hall, she saw bloodstains, phaser burns along the walls, and the dead bodies of some of the Artifact's employees. She gritted her teeth and kept her head down; once she found Hugh, surely he would explain.

She found him dead, a knife wound across his throat.

Not far away, Picard's Romulan bodyguard was curled up under a desk, clutching her calling card in one bloodstained hand.

"Explain."

"The Zhat Vash killed the Director … killed them all … I couldn't save them," said Elnor, between gasps for breath. "I've never … failed … to save anyone before."

_Get used to it,_ was Seven's first, bitter thought.

She'd failed to save Icheb too. Now, whenever she met a young man with qualities that reminded her of him – innocence perhaps, or open-mindedness – one of her instincts was to defend him with tooth and claw, and the other was to run.

She couldn't afford to care about this boy. She had cared about Hugh, about Icheb, about One, and look where it had gotten her …

Elnor reached behind him for his sword and held it out to her, hilt first.

"What are you doing?" She backed away.

"I am dishonored." The weapon trembled in his hands. "I have failed to protect my master's friend, and therefore to serve his cause. Will you … ?"

"_NO!" _

She yanked the sword out of his hands and threw it to the floor. Her scream echoed off the metallic walls of the cube until it sounded like half a dozen furious women. Elnor, for all his talk, had enough life left in him to jump.

The sword gleamed where it lay on the floor, reflecting the green light with a sheen not unlike that of certain Borg implants.

Seven looked from it to her outstretched left hand and back again.

She had an idea.

"Don't be ridiculous, Elnor," she said gruffly. "You haven't failed anyone. We can still save them."

"What …" His eyes went, if possible, even wider than before. "_How_?"

"As long as the Borg components are intact, we XB's can use them to revive each other."

"That sounds … " Elnor scrambled to his feet, reached for his sword and re-sheathed it slowly, not taking his eyes off Seven in the process. "Gruesome. Also miraculous. What can I do?"

"Help me carry them to the infirmary."

"Yes, madame." Elnor darted past her. "Follow me."

/

When Director Hugh opened his eyes at last in the infirmary he had so painstakingly designed, he looked to Seven's eyes like something out of one of Tom Paris' horror films. His skin was grayish, the knife wound was scarred over by a web of fresh implants, and when he spoke, his voice was a mechanical rasp, the implants having replaced his severed throat with a Borg vocal processor.

"Seven of Nine." He folded himself upright, not using his hands as an organic would, and caught her wrist in a cold, hard grip.

Fear seized her. Could the procedure have gone wrong? She couldn't have fully assimilated him, could she? If the Collective were to find this cube …

"You must warn them," said Hugh, an imploring look in his blue-gray eyes. "Picard and Dr. Asha – they're in danger. The Romulans - "

The relief of knowing that the Director was still himself was so deep, it nearly drowned out the urgency of what came next.

"I know," said Seven, gesturing to the young man beside her. "Elnor told me."

"My colleagues … " A shudder went through Hugh and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if in a futile attempt to block out the horrors he had seen. "She killed them … I wouldn't answer her questions, and she killed them all … "

His hand went to his own neck and found the webbed-over scar. He turned, if possible, an even more sickly shade of gray.

"Director?" Seven covered his hand, which was still holding her wrist, with her other hand and gave it an awkward pat. "Hugh?"

No reaction.

"Third of Five!"

His eyes snapped open.

"We can still repair them. We will apply the Species 149 method," she said, prying her hand free and unsheathing her assimilation tubules. She held them up in front of his eyes and let them weave from side to side. "You will assist me."

"I will - " Hugh caught himself before saying the word _comply._ "Of course," he said instead. "Thank you … it was you, wasn't it, who saved me?"

"I helped a little," said a shamefaced Elnor, shuffling into Hugh's line of sight for the first time. "It was the least I could do after we brought such devastation to your home. I'm terribly sorry."

"You risked your life to get your shipmates to safety," Hugh replied, in as warm a tone as his vocal processor could manage. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

Elnor lowered his gaze. No doubt he disagreed.

"Come on, Director." Seven sheathed her tubules, wrapped one arm around her patient's back and held out the other to help him down from the biobed. "We need to hurry. The sooner we get your colleagues back, the sooner we can warn Picard and the others."

She locked eyes with Elnor over Hugh's head, and the young man nodded. The despair she had seen in his face earlier was gone; determination, perhaps even hope, was returning.

_No one dies today_, said that low, fierce voice in the back of her head, the one that still sounded like Kathryn Janeway. _Not on my watch._


	15. Chapter 15

Family

(Riker, Troi, Soji)

Will kept his arm around Deanna's shoulders as they watched Jean-Luc and Soji heading down the path, Kestra bounding ahead of them like the wild girl she wanted to be. Deanna sensed that their daughter needed space right now. Even after a few days, Kestra had made friends with Soji and would miss having her in the house.

Deanna, for that matter, would miss the young android too.

"How about that Soji, huh?" said Will, smiling sadly as they went back indoors. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I wouldn't know, dear. You were never much good as a telepath."

"She's a chip off the old block." He gazed into the distance, where the road disappeared out of sight into the forest. "I wish Data had gotten to know her. He would've been proud."

Deanna agreed. The shape of Soji's face, the way she tilted her head while processing information, the way she could learn to speak an invented language fluently within minutes … it all made Deanna's heart ache in more ways than she could name.

"Yes," she said, "But, you see … what with Data, Maddox and now Jean-Luc, this girl has got more father figures than she knows what to do with."

"Only one of 'em alive, though."

Will scowled. Resentment wafted off him like the smell of burned tomatoes. She could only assume it was toward Maddox, who had created Soji and left her alone.

"Yes," said Deanna. "But, Will … she has no mother. We're sending her off on a life-threatening mission and she might die without ever having known a mother."

Will might not be much of a telepath, but he could still read her like a book. He held out his arm again and let her tuck her head against his chest, radiating comfort, He knew as well as she did that it wasn't only Soji's fate that haunted her.

A child with no mother was, after all, the exact inverse of a mother who had lost a child.

"She'll have us," said Will, "Whether she likes it or not, eh?" He rubbed Deanna's back firmly, making her crack a smile. "Kid's got some serious trust issues, let me tell you. Although Jean-Luc's godawful joke may have actually helped."

"Why in the world would you say that?"

"Well, when you shove someone halfway across the garden and the only reaction you get is _Whoa, hey!_" He put on a perfect parody of his own voice, making her giggle in spite of herself. "It's a pretty clear sign they don't mean you any harm."

"She was testing us," Deanna realized. "Of course."

"Smart girl," said Will affectionately. "Like I said, a chip off the old block."

Deanna took one of their last bottles of Chateau Picard out from the dustiest corner of the kitchen cupboard, wiped it off, and poured each of them a glass.

"To the newest member of our family," said Will, raising a toast.

As they clinked glasses, Deanna sent two silent prayers: one to the Four Deities of Betazed, and one to the spirit of her son.

_Keep her safe._


	16. Chapter 16

Silence

(Elnor & Seven)

"Was being a Borg Queen as terrible as it looked?" Elnor asked softly, following Seven of Nine through the forests of the unknown planet to which the Queen Cell's portal had led them.

The ex-Borg woman shot him a bleak glance, and he subsided. Only a day ago, he would have asked another question, but now he understood that some truths were too cruel to speak out loud. Sometimes the only answer that was both honest and compassionate was silence.

Eventually, however, she did speak.

"Yes," she said, leaf-shadows flickering across her face. "And no."

"How?"

"I never wanted it to end," she whispered. "That's why it was terrible."

Elnor could only imagine how she must have felt. Thousands of voices in harmony, all under her command, connected by those cables to her spine like infants to the umbilical cord … no doubt, no fear, no pain … only the glorious certainty of the Collective. Yes, he could imagine it.

"Then what made you stop?" he asked.

She blinked, shook her head, and seemed to gather her thoughts from what must have been light years away. She looked down at the leaf-littered forest floor, up at the sun shining through the trees, then again at Elnor, and this time, her blue eyes softened.

She looked like Zhani, he thought, when he had nightmares as a child. His foster-mother used to stroke his forehead until he fell asleep.

"You did," said Seven. "I'm glad you were there."

"I'm glad you were too," Elnor managed to say, before letting the merciful silence blanket them both once more.

/

Second Chance

(Agnes & Soji)

As Soji piloted the ship through the transwarp conduit, most of _La Sirena_'s crew, having little or nothing to do, retired to their cabins. The only ones who stayed on the bridge with her were Rios, who still felt territorial about his ship, and Jurati, who was watching Soji's every movement like a freshman art student facing a Michelangelo sculpture.

It was starting to freak her out.

"Will you stop staring at me?"

"I'm sorry." Jurati hung her head, limp blond curls hiding her face. "I didn't mean to … it's just … I still can't believe you're actually here. You're everything that Br – that my colleagues and I dreamed about … I can't believe what Commodore Oh did to me, that I'd go against everything I believed in. It's like … I wasn't even _me_ anymore."

Soji had turned back to her console and couldn't see Jurati's face, but the human girl's voice wobbled, and a sniff indicated that she was crying.

Soji wanted to ignore her. For God's sake, this woman had killed Bruce Maddox – Soji's creator, and one of the few people who would have had answers for her – but the sound of her crying was impossible to ignore.

Soji knew all too well what it felt like not to be yourself.

Besides, she was a therapist. She'd worked as one for three years aboard the Artifact. (That had to be real, didn't it? Even if nearly everything else about her was fake?)

"Hey, Jurati." She cleared her throat. "Agnes?"

"Um … yes?"

"You're not the only one, okay? You're not the only one who's been manipulated into doing things you regret. I sold out my homeworld to a Zhat Vash agent for a few kisses. If he gets there before we do … "

"It's not the same thing," said Agnes.

"You're right, it isn't," Soji retorted bluntly. "But my point is … you still are Dr. Agnes Jurati, the Federation's leading expert on synthetic life. You still are someone who believes that technology can improve people's lives. You have this … this self, this identity, you've been building your whole life – do you have any idea how valuable that is? Don't let Commodore Oh – or anyone – take it away again. Is that understood?"

From the corner of her vision, Soji could see that Agnes' eyes had gone round as saucers, and her hand was covering her mouth. Soji's voice had risen without her realizing it. Rios had his head buried in one of his paper books, discreetly pretending not to listen, although he'd doubtlessly heard every word.

Soji blushed. She'd just made the most basic mistake every therapist should avoid: she'd lost her detachment. Thinking of her Borg patients, and especially of herself, had made her so angry that she'd wanted to shake Agnes by the collar of her cardigan like a puppy. No, not angry; envious. She envied anyone who knew enough about their own nature to feel conscious of betraying it.

Against all odds, though, Soji's unprofessional outburst seemed to make Agnes feel better. Her whole body relaxed, she wiped her eyes with her sleeves the way you do when you're pretty sure no more tears are coming, and she even gave Soji a tiny smile.

"Understood."

"Captain?" Soji called to Rios, who stuck a finger between the pages of his book and looked up. "Would you mind taking the helm? I'm going to the mess hall."

"Aye, aye," he said sarcastically, rising from his chair.

"If there's anything in the readings you don't understand … "

"I'll comm you and let your superior positronic brain handle it," he retorted. "Gotcha."

Agnes hid a small giggle behind one hand as Soji walked past her.

"Are you coming?" Soji tilted her head toward the corridor. "I could use some help with an experiment."

"What kind of experiment?" Agnes jumped up from her seat.

"Finding out what my favorite food is. I'm not Jana, you know." She aimed that last sentence at Rios, who only grunted in reply as he inserted his hand into the controls. "And peppermint ice cream with French fries _is_ disgusting."

Agnes beamed like a little girl (probably thrilled by the prospect of an android who could eat food, let alone have favorites) before visibly pulling herself together and giving Soji her best attempt at a casual nod.

"Okay," she said. "Fair warning, though – the red velvet cake should come with restrictions on it, like alcohol. No more than one slice per person."

"I'll keep that mind."


	17. Chapter 17

Sisters

(Soji, Sutra, Narek, Picard)

For Soji, looking at Sutra is like staring at a distorted reflection: her own face, her own gestures, but the metallic coloring of an early-model Soong-type android. She tilts her head and it's uncanny; old recordings of Commander Data show him moving in exactly the same way.

They are sisters. Soji should trust her. She _does_ trust her.

And yet …

"You still pity Narek, don't you?" the older synth asks as they stand by the window of Dr. Soong's office.

Past the clean white buildings of the settlement, they can see the harsh desert landscape where the Romulan must have run when he escaped. Sharp rocks, glaring sunlight; even the cacti look as if they could make you bleed. Sutra's yellow eyes are cold as she surveys the prospect.

"If you think that means I'd hesitate to stop him, you're mistaken," Soji flashes. "I wouldn't."

"Good." Sutra smiles. "He can't be trusted, you know. None of them can."

Soji knows she's not only referring to Romulans, but to organics in general. She looks down in the direction of where the holding cell must be; she can't see it from here, but she can imagine Picard sitting on that hard bench, exposed to the stares of every passerby behind that force field. All because he argued that summoning the Admonition's creators to slaughter the Romulans wholesale might not be the only solution.

She swallows hard.

"Picard isn't like Narek. He wants to help us."

"He wants us to _need_ his help. Like every organic, he wants us to rely on him. It's only another way of keeping us under control. Fear is such an effective way to do that, don't you think?"

Sutra catches Soji's eye, and something about that yellow stare is so human – inhuman, Picard might have said, but no machine's eyes would ever gleam with such subtle malice – that it stops Soji cold.

Whatever else she might be, she is still a psychologist. After spending three years on the Artefact, counseling XB's, and having whatever naivete she still possessed torn away by Narek, she ought to understand the workings of the mind.

Everyone, to a certain extent, shapes their own reality. This is something she always used to tell her patients, trying to help them turn their stories of assimilation, pain and loss into stories of strength and survival. The stories we tell ourselves influence the lives we live, and vice versa. This applies to our fears as well as our wishes. We always see our own fears reflected in the world around us. Narek is afraid of synthetic life forms, and he's made enemies of an entire colony of them. If Sutra's fear is of being controlled, what does that say about her?

Soji remembers the speech the android leader gave after Narek's escape, how they laid out Arcana's body on the street with the hummingbird pin still piercing her eye, Dr. Soong wailing his grief and outrage for all passersby to hear, and everyone rallying to Sutra's cause. Without that display, the synths might have listened to Picard. It was all so very convenient, as far as Sutra was concerned.

Too convenient.

Could Sutra have killed Arcana herself? Or maybe all she did was let Narek out of the cell. The logic of sacrifice, which has preoccupied Soji for days now, would seem to permit killing one person for what you perceived as the greater good.

_Please, no, _a desperate voice cries out from the back of Soji's positronic brain. _Not my sister too. Please don't let me be betrayed again._

But in the meantime, she has never been so grateful for being an android as she is now. Becoming aware of all the myriad human displays of emotion that are programmed into her – the way her breath hitches in her throat, her heart races, and her eyes flutter just before she breaks down crying – has made her mercifully able to prevent them before they start.

It takes enormous effort beneath the surface, but as far as Sutra knows, nothing has changed.

"I'm so tired of being afraid," Soji says, and it's absolutely true.

"Never again." Sutra wraps an arm around her sister's shoulders. "I promise. You're among family now."

_No, I'm not,_ Soji thinks, ordering herself to lean into the embrace.

_But as soon as I break Picard out of that cell, I will be._


	18. Chapter 18

Photographs

(Soji & Hugh)

Soji crouched among the wreckage of her old quarters on the Artefact, staring at a photograph of her and Dahj. A graduation photo, of all things, when they'd never had a graduation; those blue robes and tasseled caps were as fake as the diplomas they carried.

As for Dahj, with her proud smile and one arm tucked around her sister's shoulders, Soji almost wished that she had been a fake as well. You couldn't miss someone who never existed.

Were there more sisters – more copies, Soji corrected bitterly – in the settlement on this planet? What would they be like? Were they more mentally stable than Soji, knowing exactly what they were and where they came from? Would they pity her? Or would they resent her, justifiably, for showing up with a fleet of Warbirds in her wake?

She let the photo flutter to the ground and bowed her head, still on her knees as if she were praying, although she wouldn't know whom to pray to and didn't even believe that anyone would answer. Even in the days she had still believed in someone, it hadn't been God.

A light tap of metal against metal behind her made her leap to her feet and whirl around, seizing the desk lamp as the closest weapon at hand.

"Apologies," said a tenor voice with a slight mechanical edge to it.

An ex-Borg stood in the doorframe, having knocked on the wall with steel-covered knuckles. It took her a few seconds to recognize him in full armor, but those blue-gray eyes and gentle features were unmistakable.

"_Hugh?"_ She put the lamp back on the desk and blushed, remembering that she was talking to her former superior. "I mean, Director - "

"Soji." He crossed the room and held out both hands, organic and prosthetic. Up close, his face looked pale, but his eyes shone. "I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you safe."

"We thought you were dead!" She squeezed his hands, blinking back a hot rush of tears. "When the Romulans attacked the Cube - "

"We XB's are not easy to kill." There was a new, grim note in his voice she understood perfectly. "Seven of Nine linked us in a temporary micro-Collective in order to save as many of us as she could. A radical method … " He looked down uncomfortably at his armored body, "But it worked."

Soji could feel a million questions rising up - the doctor in her was fascinated – but first things first.

"Does Picard know? And the others?"

"Yes," he rasped. "I gave him rather a shock, looking like this, but it couldn't be helped."

"It shouldn't matter what you look like!" Soji was indignant on Hugh's behalf, even though she had been startled by his appearance earlier as well (and Picard had his own reasons for reacting badly to a Borg exoskeleton). "Why does it matter, as long as you're still here?"

"It means a great deal to hear you say that." The warmth of his manner should have been at odds with his mechanical appearance, but it wasn't. "This, you see, is one of the things I have always respected about you: your ability to accept what others fear."

Soji knew he meant it as a compliment, but she couldn't help but feel it as a reproach. Looking around at the mess she had made of her room – torn-up photographs, ripped-up diary pages, her blue plush toy lying with its arms sprawled like a corpse – she felt, bitterly, that Hugh was wrong. She wasn't that accepting of a person; how could she be, when she could barely accept herself? How could he claim to know anything about her, when she barely knew herself?

The paranoia she had been battling ever since she had left this cube reared its ugly head. "Did you know I'm an android? Is that why you hired me?"

"No."

"What about Narek? Did you know he was a spy?"

"If I had turned away every potential spy my Romulan sponsors sent me, I would never have survived this long. I tried to stop him, but I failed. For that, I am sorry."

Her suspicion eased a little, and she felt guilty. The damage done to him and his Artefact spoke volumes; there was no way he could be in league with the Zhat Vash.

"But if you had known," she persisted, hardly knowing what answers she wanted or why she wanted them so badly, "If you'd known what I really was … what would you have done?"

"I suspected there was more to you than meets the eye, but nothing like this," said Hugh. "Still, it would not have made a difference to me. You were, and still are, one of the finest doctors it has ever been my privilege to work with. When this crisis is over, should you choose to accept it, there will always be a place for you on the Artefact."

She strained her superhuman senses to see if he was lying, but not even the faintest change in his body language signaled anything but the truth. The implants regulating his vital signs hummed steadily, his voice did not waver, and he met her eyes head-on.

It was this, of all things, that made the tears she had been holding back finally flow.

Ever since learning who she was, it felt as if her life had been defined by people trying to make her fit their definitions of who she was. Hugh didn't care about that. With an ex-Borg's practicality, he was judging her by the only thing that mattered to him: the work they had done together and the skills he could use for his cause.

After being Narek's victim, Data's daughter, Maddox's masterpiece and Picard's redemption, it was a relief beyond words to be simply someone's colleague.

"Thank you." She scooped her plush toy off the floor, turned her back on Hugh in order to replace it on its shelf, and buried her face briefly in its soft blue fur. "That's … thank you, Director. I'll … um … I'll get back to you on that."

"I understand, of course, if you choose to stay with your people." Rustling sounds and the creaking of stiff armor told her he was gathering up the papers from her floor. "Or with your crew."

"If any of us survive this," she muttered, mostly to herself.

"If, indeed."

He came up beside her, a polite distance away, to place a stack of photographs on the desk. He handled them with as much care as if the life they depicted had been real.

"Sorry about the mess, by the way." She stood her overturned chair back upright, picked up her carbon-dating device and put it away in a drawer. "Unprofessional, I know."

"This is the least of my worries, I assure you."

But there was something indescribably soothing about restoring order, even in such a small way. She could tell that Hugh thought the same by the precise way he swept together illegible shreds of paper to put them in the recycler. Was it because they were both part machine, or because they were scientists? Either way, it was something they had in common.

She found a picture of her twenty-third birthday party (her third, she corrected) in the Artefact's cantina: a replicated chocolate cake on the table, a pink cone-shaped paper hat on her head, a giddy smile on her face, and her teammates clustering around her. Narek had been the photographer (her stomach lurched to remember why she had been smiling at him like that), but Na'ashala was there and so was Hugh, wearing his gray silk suit instead of armor, his brown hair neat and healthy.

Na'ashala must have been killed, Soji realized. If not by the Romulans, then in the crash of the cube. The XB's had only survived because of their implants and Seven's link holding them together; a flesh-and-blood body wouldn't have stood a chance. Soji grieved for the good-natured Trill woman who had always teased her about Narek, and felt sick all over again at the cruelty that would cause so much senseless death.

But whatever else this picture might be, it was real - as real as the friendship of the man who had helped her find it. In a world of illusions, that was no small thing.

She folded it up and tucked it into her pocket. Wherever she might go, she could at least take it with her.


End file.
